I would not say my financial history is a string of good moves. But, I did start maxing my 401k and IRA as soon as I could and have always saved about 20% of my gross income. I also don't carry consumer debt.

[*]Started saving in 401K as soon as allowed by plan[*]Using automated feature in 401K plan to increase % invested each year[*]Finding the things in life that we want to spend money on[*]Finding the things in life we DON'T want to spend money on[*]Not going from 1 company to the other chasing small pay increases. Understood at an early age the benefit of working for a company with a pension plan[*]Enjoying Life and my family knowing we have set aside enough to enjoy our lifestyle

Not cheating on my wife.Not abusing drugs or alcohol.Not fathering a kid before being married. (Thank you, Lady Luck!)Making a conscious decision on entering college to work my tail off rather than party.Related to immediately-above consideration, being able to leverage my conscientiousness into five years of free schooling. Getting out of school without any debt.Buying a home whose mortgage (and other life expenses) could be paid with only one of our salaries.Becoming a specialist in two areas of my profession. The combination was unbeatable and gave me a unique competitive advantage.

My answer fits the pattern.1). Getting an education allowing entry into a profession with reasonable income.2). Marrying a woman who has values which do not include having more or better or shiny "stuff."3). Saving for retirement from the start of my working career.4). One house in one mid-western smaller city for 34 years, paid off when we had a surprise windfall.5). Holding onto cars, which were adequate if boring, staying away from cars meant to impress others. 6). Switching the Fidelity 401K into lowest cost funds offered in our particular plan in 2008, increasing the percent equities funds when lots of folks wanted bonds. 7). Avoid extravagant living 8). Spending the 2.5 months recovering from bicycle accident reading about investing, finding Jack Bogle and joining this community.

Still very early on in my career, but the main items that come to mind: * Opened a credit card at age 18 to build my credit history + score. Avoided carrying a balance and pay it off in full every month.* Completed undergrad with a manageable amount of student loans, albeit high-interest ones. Dedicated all additional cash flow to paying them off [achieved].* Maxing out Roth IRA once loans were paid off. * Increasing 401k contributions with every year/raise.* Bringing my lunch to work (HCOL area where coworkers routinely spend $10+/day). * Using credit card rewards to fund travel.

As for a particular investment strategy, my advice to fellow younger newbies (un-Boglehead though it may be): use the Target Date fund that matches your retirement and start your contributions immediately. You can always change your funds (such as to the 3-fund portfolio) later. Don’t let analysis paralysis prevent you from starting your contributions. Today is always better than ‘someday.’

Pretty much what everyone else has said so far. But the most important thing for me was - I always chose work/employment that I really loved, paying no attention to salary/remuneration etc., It paid to be good at my work.

What I write on this forum is sometimes the truth, maybe the whole truth, and not always nothing but the truth, for the purposes of online anonymity.

We have made lots of mistakes and started out late in the game.. but the best financial move we've made so far (and against the advice of several users of this forum) was to expand our business last year. This was just a small initial investment, but has dramatically increased our income and future income potential.

So many mistakes but I've learned a lot too. Best moves:* Getting an MBA that allowed me an above-average salary* Bought a townhouse for $60K at the bottom of the market in 2011. It is now paid off and I'm enjoying a debt-free life with a <2 mile commute to work. Market price for one now is ~$140K, but I'm not selling.* Paid cash for my current car - this may not be a "good" financial move, but I have no debt and didn't want to deal with a payment even if I could have gotten a low interest rate. * Maxing out a 401K and HSA each year for the last seven years * Preparing for a somewhat early retirement at age 55 because I realize I don't absolutely love working* Never having kids

multiham wrote:[*]Started saving in 401K as soon as allowed by plan[*]Using automated feature in 401K plan to increase % invested each year[*]Finding the things in life that we want to spend money on[*]Finding the things in life we DON'T want to spend money on[*]Not going from 1 company to the other chasing small pay increases. Understood at an early age the benefit of working for a company with a pension plan[*]Enjoying Life and my family knowing we have set aside enough to enjoy our lifestyle

Unfortunately those pensions went the way of the dinosaurs. Going from one company to another is usually the fastest way to increase comp, although one should shoot for big increases rather than small.

"Squirrels figured out how to save eons ago. They buried acorns. Some, they dug up, for food. Others, they let to sprout, in new oak trees. We could learn from squirrels." -john94549

Trust me, I've made tons of stupid financial mistakes, but as far as the things I've done right --

- Went back to college in my early 30's to study accounting. That allowed me to escape a dead-end low-paying job. - Saved and invested 30-35% of my gross income. - Kept the same modest lifestyle even while I was getting raises. - Bought modest houses even when I could've afforded much bigger ones. - Kept my current car, a 2007 Camry, for 10 years now. - Educated myself on index fund investing, which brought an end to many of the stupid mistakes and allowed me to build financial security.

catdude | | “The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.” (Mark Twain)

Blind luck early on when every penny was in Vanguard Healthcare during its peak performance years when I thought diversification was owning a number of stocks rather than diversifying across sectors. Today, it is clearly finding this site and the older one on Morningstar, establishing a portfolio with the aid of the wonderful people here and continuing to learn. The initial thread, by the way, was listed among the best of that year in an article in a popular financial magazine.

Somewhere about age 30, I felt that I had enough income, enough house chosen for its shorter commute, and enough reliable vehicle. I felt satisfied but what was lacking was, enough to retire. I then saved a good fraction and saved pay raises until I retired at 55, into the best years of my life.

About age 42, I transferred from the city to the hinterlands where cost of living and temptations for spending were less, while my outdoor recreation was in the nearby mountains. Attitude, a good savings rate for a long period, and geography, all helped.

At one particular point in our lives, deciding to stick it out in our starter home rather than moving up to what we "really deserved". Those 5 years of being able to save (rather than sending the $ to bank in the form of higher mortgage payments) made a tremendous difference in paying for our kids' college and achieving early retirement.

It took me years (and an expatriation) to do it, but the best move for me was to automate savings directly out of my paycheck. I never see the money, so I don't miss it.I have zero decision to make to save money, but I do have decisions to make *and* actions to take to spend it. Inertia works.

About a year after I entered the "real world," something put the fear of being old and poor in me. I started contributing as much as I could to the 401(k) I had through my employer, and continued that until I lost my job in 2010.

For some reason, I didn't pay much attention to the 401(k) statements I received. As a result, I maintained a 100% equities AA until late 2013. (I'm fairly sure I would have lost my nerve otherwise.)

"How much you know is less important than how clearly you understand where the borders of your ignorance begin." — Jason Zweig

Attending medical school in Germany free of charge , emigrating to the USA , working hard and getting paid for it .With vanguard for 20 years , discovering this site about 8 years ago .Avoiding to keep up with the joneses .Living below means with occasional slips such as fancy cars ....

We are mid forties now, and definitely have had many similar financial decisions that other posters have already mentioned. Some were definitely luck, but some of these were clearly mindset and intentional. I do want to add though, that we also made several "mistakes" too along the way. They were lessons that we probably just needed to learn, but I at least wanted to let other folks know that you can correct your path even if you make mistakes. We made mistakes, but tried to learn from them and get back on track, and now have over $3M in investments, and a net worth closer to $4M if we add in house equity, pension value, etc.

1. Saved early and regularly. I remember signing up for the company 401k when I first started at megacorp in my early twenties, when my peers thought it was ridiculous to save for retirement at that age. In my naïveté, I didn't really even know much about compounding, but I really just wanted the "free money" that was outlined as the company match in the brochure.

2. Lived below our means. We were mildly frugal in the beginning, but that was mainly because our starting salaries were nothing to brag about. What we were practicing was essentially not spending more than we made--in other words, we had to live fairly cheaply because we didn't make a lot--but this was another thing that seemed to be going against the grain compared to peers who bought every new electronic or toy. Our peers and us were all college educated with decent degrees (engineering, accounting, etc), but some folks felt they had to buy and show higher end things while we bought within our means.

3. Married to a spouse with similar mindset. Both of us had the philosophy of not living beyond our means, and saving any leftover money after our monthly expenses and discretionary spending. If, as our salaries got larger, that extra leftover money was after we maxed 401k, IRA, and ESPP, we put extra money into taxable accounts, and set up regular withdrawals from checking into taxable as autopilot.

4. With houses, we got lucky to buy a few times at fairly low real estate markets and hence made money from real estate appreciation. We put 20% down each time, used fixed rate mortgages, and refinanced as rates got lower, if we were going to stay in the home past the break even point.

5. Stayed the course. Didn't feel compelled to sell when markets hit bottom, but I think we were also lucky that our jobs were still in place and we were still living within our means. So invested money was, in our earlier years, more like play money in our mindset. Whether right or wrong, we viewed it as money we didn't need for a long time, so we didn't pay attention to what the market was doing. I think it helped prevent us from panicking.

6. Am now following Bogleheads, learning and correcting as I go.

There are probably more examples of both luck and intention in our case, but the above were the essentials for us. In recent years when I found bogleheads, I saw that we were making additional choices/decisions that weren't in our best long term financial interest. We had had an advisor with non trivial costs, we had some expensive funds, we had individual risky stocks, we had no bonds, we had fallen into some unnecessary lifestyle creep beyond just living well, and we didn't really know where our spending was going. I slowly have corrected most of those in recent years.

I think part of the reason we are in good financial shape right now--besides luck-- is that our earlier decisions of living below our means and saving regularly helped to counter some of our poorer decisions, which I didn't even know were poor decisions until I came to Bogleheads. This site sure has helped me to clean up any errors in our financial choices, and now we just need to stay on course. I hope anyone reading this knows that good choices as early as you can, along with correcting poor ones once you learn about them, will most likely put you on the track to your optimal financial state. Don't sweat the mistakes, just work to correct them.

Start by doing what is necessary; |
then do what is possible; |
and suddenly you are doing the impossible. |
-- Francis of Assisi

The best financial move I made, was to break up a partnership, which at the time felt like an anchor pulling us underwater.

The break up put on us the road of perdition and the fall out was ugly, drawn out and very stressful. I picked up the shambles for pennies on the dollar and while it worked out, at the time it looked like an enormous gamble.

If I could do it all over again, if I would never gone for the partnership in the first place.

Hindsight is 20/20.

In hindsight, the best financial move, which set me up for life has little to do with my intentions. It is being born in first world country, with smart, educated parents, who loved me unconditionally (as I perceived it) and had common sense and willing to support me in my endeavors.

The Golden Rule: One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.

Got a physics PhD just as Nixon laid off 2000 from NASA in the early 1970s Best move was to join the oil industry! Always lived well below our means, saving >30% of income. Next best move was to purchase 3 houses on different continents using 90% mortgages at age 31. Two worked out fabulously, 3rd increased to a mere 350% of purchase price in 30 years. Trivial carrying costs on all since they were rented out. Built a couple of apartment blocks in a high rent environment, quickly generating net income > my job. Spare cash invested mostly in SPY and BRK, for decades. Regrets? Not dumping my well paying, secure job and venturing into servicing the oil industry at its peak. A few colleagues who did this are now worth 9 to even 10 figures. BH style of taking minimal risk is comfortable, and appropriate to most people, especially those in middle age and above, but perhaps not appropriate to youngsters aiming to get rich. Making serious $ requires serious risk taking...

Started investing young(ish) and continued my whole working career. Read the book Wealth Without Risk by Charles Givens and followed quite a lot of the advice. Unfortunately he became a bit of a scam artist, but his initial advice was good for me. Cut insurance and other living costs and invest the proceeds in low load mutual funds. Didn't get in on the index funds right away, but figured out that low cost indexing made the most sense pretty early.

cashisking500 wrote:I'm going to assume that most folks on Bogleheads are above average in terms of how they handle their finances.

To help some of the newbies (including myself), what are the best financial decisions you've made that have allowed you to be where you are today? (i.e. eliminate debt, particular investment strategy, etc.)

Thanks!

I read John Bogles books on financial wisdom and never looked backMy first, and I think the best decision was to invest in Vanguards S&P fund over 20 years ago

Honestly, I haven't done much correctly in the financial sense in my life. Due to low paying contract jobs for many years at the start of my career, I consider myself well behind the curve. However, 2 main things have given me hope in turning the ship around:

1)Married a wonderful wife who is onboard with righting the ship2)Finding this site. I love to research things and investing is SO complex from the outside. Two days after meeting an Ameriprise rep and him filling my head with load fees/eastern europe sector funds etc etc, I stumbled onto this board. I read of the 3 fund portfolio and how simple it can be. Over the last 18 months I've seen money go up and down, but knowing that I'm in low cost well diversified funds as opposed to being fleeced by an 'advisor'....priceless.

We all do the LBYM, investing in risk appropriate and age appropriate, tax minimizing portfolio thing.

The best financial moves are the ones that gave me perspective.

1. I am not going to be able to see all the opportunities in front of me and some I am going to mess up all due to my fault. And this is ok. Hindsight is always 20/20. So be kind on yourself. - I came to this after the great recession. I went in to the recession with no debt and a job and a pile of savings and a stack of 0% balance transfer checks that if I had cashed and invested I would have tripled my net worth now. But such were things that I didn't know if the economy would survive so I did the most risk averse thing. Kept my savings in my savings account and DCA my savings from my paycheck.2. Seeing your investments grow is a pleasing thing to the senses but don't let it fool you to take inappropriate risks. - I have to keep reminding myself of this. Equities have done wonderfully well in the past 8 years but that does not mean it will continue into perpetuity.

-Started with a broker (at age 26) in 1982 and quickly realized his recommendations were making him money up front, while I took the risk.-Found Vanguard in the mid 80's, started IRAs there.-Headed collective bargaining team with a no-pension employer from 1985-2005, to establish and fund, a 401(k) plan (1% for each year employed up to 10%).-At least match the employer contribution to said 401(k) plan. By the late 90's, my 401(k) was making more than I was.-Read "Your Money or Your Life" in 1992. Subscribed to Smart Money magazine.-Joined an investment club. Started DRIP stocks. Opened Vanguard brokerage account.-Created a spreadsheet that would project my financial freedom date with variables for returns, tax rates, contributions, etc.-Started Roths in 2003, started converting to the top of the 15% bracket in 2006 (to avoid RMDs making SS taxable).-Deciding in 2007-9 that "going to cash" would be meaningless if the system had actually failed. So I did nothing. (I actually did not fund the Roth for 2007, but resumed in 2008)-Becoming comfortable with the Affordable Care Act provisions in 2012.-Tax GAIN harvesting in 2012 and 2013 at a 0% tax rate (countable as income in the Affordable Care Act).-Taking maximum advantage of the subsidies available under the Affordable Care Act from 2014 to date.-Planning to defer SS until age 70.

Last edited by Not Law on Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

1. Teaching personal finance to high school juniors & seniors 2. Consistently saving/investing half my income3. Building even more wealth by renting out a condo4. Staying in a low federal income tax bracket 5. Choosing a partner who has similar values 6. Driving cars until they can't be reliably driven on long trips (to approx. 250-300k miles)